Top Headlines: Birmingham business summits, CFD Research wins Army contract

Aerospace, automotive summits heading to Birmingham this week
Birmingham is hosting a pair of business summits this week that showcase Alabama’s growing automotive and manufacturing industries, providing participants with high-level networking opportunities and one-on-one meetings. The conferences are the Aerospace Innovative Technology Summit (AITS), held May 7-9, and the Automotive Advanced Technology Summit (AATS), held May 8-9. Both are taking place at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex, with 200 companies expected to participate. – Made In Alabama

Group wants Amazon to reject SPLC ‘hate group’ list for charitable contributions
A free speech group says online giant Amazon should reject the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” list in determining eligibility for its AmazonSmile charitable support program. Citizens for Corporate Accountability says the SPLC unfairly targets conservative groups for the list that, in fact, represent mainstream political views not favored by SPLC donors. – AL.com

CFD Research wins $50M SBIR Army contract
CFD Research Corporation has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research Phase III contract from the U.S. Army Contracting Command, for the development of environment analysis tools, models, and test capabilities to characterize weather environment effects on the performance of weapon systems and sensors. The five-year contract has a ceiling value of $49.6 million. – News release

Dynetics donates $30K to universities in North Alabama
Dynetics has donated $30,000 in charitable gifts to Athens State University and the University of North Alabama, with $15,000 going to each institution. These two northern Alabama institutions were selected because the Huntsville area continues to seek graduates within the cybersecurity, logistics and supply chain management fields. – News release

DC BLOX acquires storage infrastructure company Ploid
DC BLOX, a multi-tenant data center partner delivering the infrastructure and connectivity essential to power today’s digital business, announces the acquisition of Ploid, a provider of storage infrastructure as a service for independent research institutions, life sciences and genomic sequencing organizations. Ploid is a leader in massive scale hybrid cloud data storage services and is a HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology associate company. Peyton McNully, the co-founder and CEO of Ploid, will be joining DC BLOX as its Chief Cloud Architect. – Business Wire

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Feds charge 10 from Haleyville pharmacy with drug fraud counts
Ten people have been charged in a 103-count indictment alleging hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud in connection to an Alabama-based pharmacy, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama. The indictments, announced Monday, involve a nurse practitioner, and the owners, a pharmacist, managers, sales representatives, and billers, of Haleyville-based Northside Pharmacy, doing business as Global Compounding Pharmacy. – WTVM

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